


BodySwap!

by raktajinos



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Body Swap, Crack, Established Relationship, M/M, Sexual Content, Work In Progress, can it be crack when Trek does the bodyswap in every series?, was supposed to be a flash fic but has grown
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:03:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2032917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raktajinos/pseuds/raktajinos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing Julian remembers was being gloriously pressed against the wall by Garak, when everything goes black. He wakes up to discover that a mysterious attack has resulted in their swapping bodies. It's all fun and games...until it's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'body swap' at [gameofcards](http://card-writing.livejournal.com/5376.html). Was supposed to be a one-shot, but alas it is not. Plot happens! Will update regularly. kudos and comments make me write faster *bribes*

"Honestly Garak, I don't understand how you can't see Kapar's motivations as anything but noble," Julian countered heatedly, his hands gesturing emphatically, "especially since its such a popular theme in Cardassian literature," he added the last as a passive barb to his companion, implying the other man didn’t know what he was talking about. 

Garak’s mouth twitched, “and that is precisely why I believe he was not acting out of a sense of duty, but a sense of self entitlement and greed,” Garak countered, a smirk on the corner of his eyes, the ‘because I know better,’ left unsaid but implied. 

They'd just finished their weekly dinner, an addition to their pre-established weekly lunches they had started a few months prior. Julian enjoyed cooking, but Garak was quite excellent at it; Julian had teased whether it was required learning in the Obsidian Order and Garak gave his usual, ‘I simply have no idea how you come up with these ideas, Doctor” reply and as usual, Julian let it slide. Regardless, they found themselves eating in most nights, enjoying the privacy of their quarters, but they enjoyed the reprieve from preparation once a week and besides, Julian liked being out on the station when it was busy, people everywhere, the hum of life. He suspected Garak liked it too, even though most on the station avoided him; a life of isolation not one he had chosen for himself. 

Having finished their dinner, they were walking down the empty corridors of Deep Space Nine, the late hour allowing them the privacy so frequently denied to them during their busy day. They walked a little closer together than they normally did and Julian let his fingers brush the ridges on Garak’s hand lazily. They’d been seeing each other officially for almost a year, and Julian was confident enough to know that somewhere along the way he’d fallen in love with the mysterious Cardassian, but he wasn’t ready to share that with the rest of the world just yet. For a number of reasons, most importantly, both their safety; the idea of a Starfleet doctor being involved with a Cardassian widely regarded as a spy would create problems for them that neither wanted to deal with; their friendship alone had made waves. So they had kept it private, simply enjoying each other, but maintaining the public face of their relationship, debating literature and philosophy, an element which Julian enjoyed heavily. 

The reading selection this week had been _’Blood on the Oars’_ , a modern Klingon novel that had been received quite controversially in the quadrant for its brazen subversion of traditional Klingon society and the choices made by its protagonist. Julian had enjoyed it, eager to read the forthcoming sequel, and Garak had made it quite obvious during their discussion that he had found it engaging as well. 

They’d arrived at Garak’s quarters, they hadn’t decided earlier whose place they’d be going to, Julian had just followed casually along, enjoying the freedom to just _be_ , allowing Garak to take the lead tonight. Most nights they ended up at Julian’s - his quarters were closer to the promenade (a benefit of being the station’s chief medical officer) and most nights they’d been too...eager to make the longer walk to Garak’s. Plus, his bed was more comfortable. 

“And what exactly would a _’simple tailor’_ know about duty?” he teased, leaning against the wall next to Garak’s quarters, watching with hooded eyes while the other man moved to type the entry code. Their dinners always ended like this, back at one of their places, the hours of debate serving both as excellent dinner conversation and exquisite foreplay. 

"My dear Doctor," Garak said, reaching the small distance between them to cup Julian's cheek. Julian loved when he called him that, his term of endearment used so publicly and he leaned into the touch, sighing. 

He caught the flare of arousal in Garak’s eyes before he pushed into Julian’s personal space, pressing him against the wall, pulling him into a searing kiss. He was glad, not for the first time, that Garak’s quarters were in a rather isolated section of the base, moaning against him and lifting a leg to wrap around his thigh. He ran his hands down the sensitive ridges of Garak’s shoulders, revelling in the shudder that went through him, pinching them in the places he knew he liked best. 

The past year had been eye opening if nothing else; Cardassians were irritatingly mum about their health and Julian had almost nothing to go on for treating anyone that came in. He’d scraped together what he could from the old servers and folk tales, but once he got Garak naked and truly _explored_ him, his inquisitive mind had learned more than he’d previously had. Garak had teased him about being treated like a laboratory experiment, but didn’t seem to mind Julian’s curiosity, especially when it yielded such pleasurable results for him. 

They broke for air and Julian all but lunged for his neck, teeth and tongue working the on the raised skin. If he wanted, he could bring Garak off just by using his mouth on his neck, something he’d discovered one afternoon in Garak’s shop early in their relationship. His own body was too close to the edge tonight to take it slow and he worked quickly, feeling the pulse quicken under his lips, the rapid breathing in his ear. 

Julian’s eyes flicked up, his gaze wandering unfocused around the deck, looking but not really seeing, the privacy again a relief. Garak’s hands had worked their way under Julian’s off duty shirt and into his pants, the strong hands gripping his ass and pulling him closer, angling his hips to create a friction against Julian’s erection. He pushed his free hand through Garak’s carefully coifed hair, scraping his nails along his scalp, earning himself a low rumbling moan from him. 

“Julian,” Garak murmured, his breath shaky and uneven. Julian loved seeing him this way, the always polished and controlled Cardassian on the edge, emotions wild, calling him _Julian_ ; made him feel powerful in knowing that he was the cause of it...that Garak trusted him enough to get this way with him. 

Garak pulled back slightly and Julian was forced to regretfully let go of him, hands sliding away from the ridges and out of his hair. He grinned, the dishevelled hair, swollen neck glands and wide glazed eyes made Garak look like anything but the cold spy he was supposed to be. He knew he didn’t look any better, leaning against the wall, his lips swollen, a wanton look on his face. But he didn’t care.

Julian heard the whoosh of the door opening and Garak grabbed him by the front of his pants and pulled him towards the more private quarters. He felt drunk, headlessly following this man wherever, his body feeling boneless and alert at the same time. Something over Garak’s shoulder caught his attention; a flash of something - a light, a weapon, Julian wasn’t sure, but panic fell in his stomach and he acted without thinking, pulling Garak roughly to the floor, falling with him. 

He must have been too slow because a wave of something hot passed through him, searing as it went; he barely had time to scream before the world went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which our heroes discover what Trek-Trope has befallen them!

“Doctor Bashir?”

“Doctor Bashir!”

He heard the nebulous voice calling to him and he struggled to push past the fog in his mind, pushing towards consciousness. He could sense he was in sickbay, the all-too-familiar feel of the biobed beneath his tired body. He hurt everywhere and it felt like too much work to open his eyes. So he lay there, and tried to speak, his mouth dry and foreign feeling around his words; nothing happened. He tried again, managing to croak out a “yes?”. 

He heard a rush of footsteps as people came towards him. 

“Garak?” a voice he recognized as Nurse Ladak.

“Is he okay?” Julian asked, feeling strong, more in the present, concern swirling in his stomach for his...Garak. He still didn’t know what to call him; boyfriend? lover? husband? He made a mental note to ask Garak if there was a Cardassian term of endearment that would be appropriate to use. 

His eyes opened and the sickbay looked different, the colours more vibrant, the contours of the ceiling more pronounced. He must be suffering from some sort of aphasia. 

“How is Garak?” he asked, feeling more grounded, trying to assess his own injuries. He felt...strange, his voice strange to his ears. 

“Um….” the nurse said and Julian forced himself to really open his eyes and turn towards her. He moved to sit up, groaning at the effort it took. 

Absolute panic filled him as he looked around, a cascade of images assaulting him. He couldn’t tell you which order he saw things in; the arms he pushed himself up with, scaly and muscled in a clear way that was not his own or the sight of his body laying motionless on the bioped next to him. 

He looked down at his hands, no longer the long, nimble hands of a surgeon, now the strong, scaly hands of an assassin. He ran those foreign hands up his arms, feeling the textures he’d so long ago memorized with his own hands, the feel different under the new skin. Julian continued his exploration up to his face, finding the same familiar-yet-foreign contours there. 

Dozens of medical reports whizzed through his mind at the realization, his genetically enhanced mind putting the pieces together quickly; astral projection, life after death, aphasia, body swapping, and a handful of other ridiculous situations Starfleet officers had found themselves in throughout the years. He had familiarized himself with all of them when he got the assignment, knowing that as the ship’s Doctor, he’d be responsible for setting things right should anything like that happen here. He never thought _he’d_ be the one it happened to. He and Garak had switched bodies; or he certainly had, and god he hoped Garak had as well and it wasn’t just an empty shell of a body laying there, meaning Garak had….

Concerned, Julian got up off the bioped, his head throbbing at the action, and began to take unsteady footsteps towards his own body. 

“Is he okay?” he asked panicked, reaching out to touch his own arm as it lay motionless. 

“Yes, Garak, he’s fine, he should be waking up soon,” the nurse said. 

“No! I’m not Garak. I’m Doctor Bashir!” he exclaimed, his voice far squeakier than he was comfortable admitting. 

He turned around to see Ladak staring at him incredulously, doing the best impression of a Vulcan he’d seen on her. He also noticed, for the first time that Major Kira and Odo were in the room. 

“I can prove it!” Julian said hurriedly, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears...but again not foreign, it was Garak’s voice after all, a voice he knew better than any other sound in the universe. 

He wracked his brain for something that only Ladak and himself would know, nothing that Garak could have obtained through his mysterious all-knowing ways. He snapped his fingers, _got it_. 

“Yesterday, you altered your contraception medication because you and Vanae are thinking of having children,” he said, smiling as her eyes went wide. There was no way anyone else would know that, he’d been her attending physician and had written the script for the change and he hadn’t even entered it into the computer yet. 

Her eyes narrowed on him now, a mix of determination and confusion. She moved to say something when he - the other he, his body, started to wake up. 

Julian leaned over and touched himself, “Garak…” he said quietly. 

He watched as Garak slowly began to wake up...in his body, it was very strange. Did he always look like that when he woke up? Garak’s eyes opened and Julian realized he probably should not have been leaning over him because the first thing Garak saw was….well his own face staring down at him. 

Terror filled his face and he let out a small shriek of horror, sitting straight up in the bed. He looked Julian up and down and then examined the body he found himself in; smooth hands doing a mirrored exploration to that Julian had done a moment before, running up the arms, over the chest and tenderly touching the smooth panes of his face. Julian saw the gears clicking, an expression so quintessentially _Garak_ so eerily on his own face, as he figured out what had happened. 

“Well, Doctor, this is quite the predicament,” Garak said calmly, sitting back down on the biobed. 

“So you are claiming to be Garak inside Doctor Bashir’s body,” Ladak said and Julian had to do everything not to giggle at the unintended euphemism. 

Garak similarly caught the slip and grinned slightly, “indeed.”

They let the moment sit for a moment while everyone digested what had happened. 

“What happened?” Kira asked, stepping forward, looking between them awkwardly. 

“Well, Garak and I had just finished dinner and we were heading back to his quarters for a game of kadis-kat,” Julian started, looking up at Garak, a meaningful glance between them, _tell most of the truth_. “I remember seeing something, a flash of something across the corridor...and I’m not sure, I just pulled him to the floor with me. And then we were hit with something and I blacked out.” 

Kira turned to Garak who nodded in agreement with the story, “I’m afraid I did not see anything Major,” 

“That’s unlike you Garak,” Odo commented in his usual dry tone. The comment was merely a statement, not a judgement however. Julian grinned, it _was_ unlike Garak, nothing escaped the former spy, but he _had_ been rather distracted at the time; a sobering thought outside the humour of it. They could have died because they’d been so wrapped up in each other. Guilt filled him. 

It must have shown on his face because Garak spoke up, “Doctor,” he said, a warning finality to his voice. 

“What?” Kira asked, catching the extra meaning between the exchange. 

“The dear doctor here is feeling guilty for the situation, risking my life and other such nonsense,” Garak explained, waving a hand, his usual charm somewhat distorted when spoken with Julian’s accented lilt. 

“We’re not sure which one of you was the target,” Odo said. 

“How long were we out for?” Julian asked

“We found you about forty-five minutes ago, the blast of the weapon registered on internal sensors and we were able to respond immediately,” Ladak said. 

“Can I see the data?” he asked, heading towards the computer terminal. 

He half listened to Odo going over their report of what happened while he examined the data on the screen. They’d essentially suffered a seizure, simultaneously experiencing a massive overload of energy throughout their entire bodies. It explained the headache and fatigue, but it didn't explain how or why they were in the wrong bodies. 

"--recovered weapon," he heard Odo say and Julian refocused on what the changeling was saying. 

"Do you know what it is? It would certainly be helpful in determining exactly what happened to us," Julian asked. 

"And how to get us back," Garak chimed. 

"And yes, that," he laughed. 

"We don't yet, but Chief O'Brien is examining it as we speak." Odo said grimly. 

Julian nodded. Miles wouldn't stop until he'd learned everything he could about the weapon. He had absolutely no idea how to even begin reversing what had happened; with the weapon he might be able to determine how they'd ended up like this, but reverse engineering a fix of this magnitude was a different feat in and of itself. And he was terrified. 

Had this happened to anyone else, Julian would have found the mystery fascinating, delighting in burying himself in the research, challenging his mind to think outside the box until a solution was found. But the old adage of doctors making the worst patients was true in this case; added on to that was Garak. It was one thing to experiment on himself, _that_ he had done before...but this involved someone he loved dearly. He'd sacrifice his own life for Garak's, but he wouldn't risk Garak's to save his own skin. Literally this time apparently. 

An idea occurred to him. 

"Inspector, I believe the Enterprise is relatively close by, I think it would be helpful if we contacted them and asked for assistance," he said, an quiver of relief beginning in his stomach at the idea of it. "Doctor Crusher has considerable more experience in this area that I do and I believe it would be best if we sought another opinion." 

His gaze rested on Garak, the shock of seeing himself still not having worn off. It would be best to bring in Crusher, her work with odd space medicine was renowned throughout the quadrant. He couldn’t be in better hands; and she’d probably find the situation as fascinating as he would have.

"I'll see to it," Odo said, nodding. 

"Do you have any suspects?" Garak asked calmly. 

"Not as of yet," Odo started, concern on his waxy features. "The gun was left abandoned in the hallway. Doctor Bashir has very few enemies, do you have any _Garak_?" he asked, scepticism clear in his voice. 

"Me?" Garak laughed, raising a tanned hand to his chest in a sign of offense, "a simple tailor?" 

Julian chuckled from the desk; he must have been the only one on the base who found Garak's continual denial of everything about his past enjoyable. 

Odo rolled his eyes, "of course. How silly of me," sarcasm dripping off each word. 

"Do keep me informed, Inspector. And let me know if I can help in any way," Garak said. Something of his charm was lost when he was saying things from Bashir's body; the open trusting mood he evoked was gone, replaced with a slick, somewhat smarmy attitude. 

"Until then, you two are free to leave if you want, there’s not much we can do here that can’t be done in your quarters until we know more. Plus, I know there's nothing that will keep either of you here. Two of the worst patients ever," Ledak said sarcastically. 

She was right, Julian thought. But at least he was better than Garak, if only marginally. 

"I'd like you to wear these cortical comms which will monitor your brain waves and basic functions," she said, attaching the cold metal to the base of their necks. 

"Call me whenever Chief O'Brien is done with the device, I'd like to examine it myself as well," Julian said. 

Odo nodded, and he turned to leave sickbay, Kira following giving them one last awkward gaze between them.

Julian sighed and turned toward Ladak and Garak; the whole situation was laughable if it wasn't so terrifying. 

"Well, off with you two then," she said, "and it's probably best if you stay together. Easier if there's a crisis," she smirked as if she knew something they did not. 

Julian tilted his head in contemplation, wondering if maybe Ladak was more aware of his and Garak's relationship than she let on.


End file.
